Rockets punished for sloppiness, lose to lowly Suns

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PHOENIX – The Rockets could overcome a poor offensive game one night, but it was not this bad. And on Saturday, the offense was not all that was wrong. Far from it.

A night after the Rockets shut down the Warriors in the fourth quarter, they seemed to be relying on the same formula against the woeful and short-handed Suns. As out of character as it might be for the Rockets to win – much less to win consecutive road games – with defense, it would be close to impossible the way they played.

That sort of game could not be won with 20 turnovers and 17 Suns offensive rebounds. The Rockets barely gave themselves a chance before the Suns pulled away for a 107-105 win, wasting the Rockets’ win on Friday at the Warriors.

There is nothing new about the Rockets offense slipping in the second game of a back-to-back and it fell badly on Saturday. James Harden made 11 of 17 shots to score 38 points with eight assists. Carlos Delfino added 21 points. But with the rest of the Rockets making just 18 of 54 shots, Harden had eight turnovers and the Rockets racked up 21, leading to 28 Suns points.

Worse, the Rockets gave away the glass. The No. 2 defensive rebounding team in the league, the Rockets gave up 17 offensive rebounds and 24 second-chance points, just four shy of the most they have allowed in a game this season.

“We didn’t regroup. We didn’t play well. We weren’t good on the glass. They beat us up there. We turned it over too much.”

That was enough for the Rockets to feel the bulk of their wounds were self-inflicted. The Suns did their part. Jared Dudley made 8 of 12 shots to score 22 points with seven assists, his top-scoring game off the bench this season. Goran Dragic scored 13 of his 18 points in the fourth quarter, a finish the Rockets have seen before. But the Rockets were also outworked on the boards by P.J. Tucker and Hamed Haddadi, who combined for 21 rebounds, six on the offensive glass.

“They scored off our mistakes and second-chance,” forward Donatas Motiejunas said. “That was pretty much why we lost the game. We gave up so many balls and almost all those balls were converted into baskets. That cost us the victory.

“Everyone is sad we lost. It’s terrible, terrible game for us.”

With the Rockets within one with four minutes left, the Rockets missed their next four shots as Dragic hit a pull up jumper and finished a break. When Marcus Morris put in the rebound of a miss, the Suns led by seven with less than two minutes remaining. Harden and Delfino put in 3s, but by then, the Rockets were forced to foul and Dragic made three of four free throws to close out the win.

The Rockets were far from efficient early, but they had done enough to lead by eight. The Suns kept the game tight largely due to the Rockets’ help, scoring 18 of their 28 first-quarter points off Rockets turnovers or second shots.

When the teams went to the bench, however, the Rockets fell apart with a stretch of one-on-one play and early 3-pointers. As starters returned, the Rockets’ play got worse.

The Suns’ 16-0 run began with waves of Rockets’ turnovers. They followed that with forced drives at Haddadi. The Rockets went 5:40 without a point, going from leading 35-29 to trailing 45-35 with 3 ½ minutes left in the half. Even after Chandler Parsons interrupted the Suns’ run with a free throw, the Rockets missed three more shots, giving them 10-consecutive misses with five turnovers in 6 ½ minutes as the Suns took their lead to 11.

“We had a lot of careless, silly mistakes we never should have made,” Parsons said. “Looking at the lineup, there’s no reason (the rebounding problems) should have happened. We have to come with way better intensity and effort and not allow them to get that many offensive rebounds.”

Before things could get too out of hand, Harden started to roll. He hit a 3-pointer, finished a drive and sank a jumper through a foul. The Rockets still trailed by four heading into the second half, but had undone much of the damage from a horrible second quarter.

Even without finding their usual shooting touch, the Rockets took a lead. But as soon as they did, they began misfiring 3-pointers again. Worse, when Asik sat, the Suns went to the rim as if the Rockets were escorting them.

When the Suns had a brief burst of fourth quarter scoring, they built a seven-point lead, forcing the Rockets to try to steal the win late. They flurry of 3s, however, came too late, having done all they could to give the game away much earlier.

“We tried to hit some shots at the end, but we never should have been in that situation, all the turnovers and all the second-chance points they had,” Parsons said. “I think it’s guys trying to make the home run play and not the easy play, being careless with the ball. It definitely hurts. It’s a bad loss for us.”